Pear tree in December

By
Steven Ratiner /
November 27, 1987

The sparrows stilt in the bare branches, the snow casting aimlessly. Sometimes one brisks the frost from his wings with the smallest shiver. They trade places, balance, sway in the wind. From here they look like pears in a small pear tree, mottled brown and gray, bare, overstayed. The leaves are gone, the seeds too are gone with the snow.

Something, something I do not see, jars the tree and sends them flying - black urge against a white sky. And now I notice one pear has fallen there in the grass and the snow.